Enlargement and the Historical Origins of the European Community's Democratic Identity, 1961–1978

This is a repository copy of Enlargement and the Historical Origins of the European Community's Democratic Identity, 1961–1978. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/91076/ Version: Accepted Version Article: De Angelis, E. and Karamouzi, E. (2016) Enlargement and the Historical Origins of the European Community's Democratic Identity, 1961–1978. Contemporary European History, 25 (3). pp. 439-458. ISSN 0960-7773 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777316000199 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Enlargement and the historical origins of the EC’s democratic identity, 1961–1978 Dr Emma De Angelis (RUSI) [email protected] & Dr Eirini Karamouzi (University of Sheffield) [email protected] Abstract: This article examines how and when democracy entered the discursive politics of the Community to finally become one of the fundamental tenets of European political identity - and in the process influenced how decision-makers approached the question of enlargement. Building on multiple archival sources, the article traces how all three Community institutions (Commission, Council and the European Parliament) legitimized the expansion and continuation of the process of European integration through the discursive construction of democracy. It will focus on the debates elicited by the attempts of Southern European countries to accede to the EEC in the 1960s and 1970s: the rebuttal of Spain’s initial overtures in 1962, the challenge of Greece – the Community’s first Associate member – being taken over by a military dictatorship in 1967, the democratizing of Greece, Spain and Portugal after the fall of their respective dictatorships in the 1970s and finally the formalisastion of such democratic ideas in the Declaration on Democracy of 1978 Introduction Questions of democracy, legitimacy and shared values in Europe have existed long before the genesis of the European Community (EC). All of these questions essentially amount to a single, overarching quest to define what ‘Europe’ is.1 Assumptions about shared cultural and religious values have always underpinned the idea of European integration – certainly in the eyes of the founding fathers of the EC.2 Nonetheless, over the course of its history, and in fits and starts, the European Community has aspired to develop what is first and foremost a community of political principles values. This is particularly true every time a new aspiring member state lodges its application to join the 1 For a discussion of how today’s European Union has progressively appropriated the discursive space of ‘Europe’ see Richard Hermann, Thomas Risse-Kappen and Marilynn Brewer, Transnational Identities– becoming European in the EU (New York: Rowan and Littlefield, 2004). Although this is not the focus of this article, it is possible to trace how EEC actors slowly started to build the equation of ‘Europe’ with their own institutions over the course of the first two decades of its existence. See also Emma De Angelis, ‘The European Parliament’s Identity Discourse and Eastern Europe, 1974-2004’, Journal of European Integration History, 17,1 (2011), 103-117. 2 Emma De Angelis, ‘The political discourse of the European Parliament, enlargement, and the construction of a European identity, 1962 – 2004’, PhD thesis, The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2011. 1 EC and enter ‘Europe’.3 Ever since Britain’s ill-fated application in 1961, the question of enlargement has been intrinsically linked to the question of European identity: deciding which countries had the right to become members of the EC/EU, and on what basis, played a crucial role in the emergence and evolution of the existing organization’s identity. The definition of what European identity amounts to is at the very least extremely controversial and cannot be addressed here: what this article focuses on instead is the way in which EC actors - the Council of Ministers (Council), the European Commission (Commission) and the European Parliament (EP) - progressively defined a general concept of ‘being European’ for the specific purposes of joining the Community.4 This article seeks to unravel a specific – and crucial – aspect of this identity: the democratic elements underpinning its political values, as defined by the key political and institutional actors involved in the enlargement of the Community to Southern European countries in the 1960-70s. It does so by focusing in particular on how and when democracy entered the discursive politics of the European Community to finally become one of the fundamental tenets of the European self-image - and in the process influenced how decision-makers approached the question of enlargement. The analysis of newly released documents of major member states and EC institutions and of the untapped source of the debates of the European Parliament shows how, in response to states seeking EC membership, the Commission European, Council and Parliament slowly – and at times grudgingly – used reference to ‘democracy’ to legitimize the expansion and continuation of the process of European integration. From a general discussion in the EP in the 1960s, the idea slowly percolated through to the policy-makers, influencing their response to the requests presented by newly democratic Southern European states 3 The concept of identity is subject to ongoing scrutiny and debate across a variety of disciplines – with ‘European identity’ alternatively being approached as an identity created by political leaders, one identified by scholars across centuries of historical and cultural developments, or the identification with ‘Europe’ and/or the EU among specific communities. The literature is vast but some examples include: Michael Bruter, Citizens of Europe? The emergence of a mass European identity (Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Bo Strath, Europe and the Other and Europe as Other (Brussels: PIE Lang, 2001); Jeffrey T Checkel and Peter J Katzenstein, European Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Richard Herrmann,Thomas Risse and Marilyn Brewer, eds., Transnational Identities: Becoming European in the EU (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004); Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995); Klaus Eder, ‘A theory of collective identity. Making sense of the debate on a “European identity”’, European Journal of Social Theory 12,4 (2009), 427-447. 4 For ease of reference, the article will refer to the European Economic Community as European Community (EC), the Council of General Affairs as the Council, and the European Parliamentary Assembly as the European Parliament (EP) (as the institution chose to call itself in 1962). 2 in the 1970s. The concept of democracy used in this context was closely associated with the idea of ‘respect for human rights’ and the rule of law: to a large extent, democracy was understood to signify a system based on the respect and protection of the human rights that the Community wished to uphold. The two concepts were often conflated into an all-encompassing idea of democratic principles in the institutional and political discourse of the 1960s and 1970s. Rather than tracing both as separate ideas, the article will look at the overarching articulation of the EC’s political identity. It will focus on the debates elicited by the attempts of Southern European countries to accede to the EEC in the 1960s and 1970s: the rebuttal of Spain’s initial overtures in 1962, the challenge of Greece – the Community’s first Associate member – being taken over by a military dictatorship in 1967, and the difficulties of dealing with the democratizing of Greece, Spain and Portugal after the fall of their respective dictatorships in the 1970s.5 Finally, it will analyse how these ideas were formalised in the Declaration on Democracy issued in 1978.6 Political scientists have claimed that the debates articulated around the question of enlargement gradually shaped a political identity based on the idea of democracy, which had not originally been part of the EC’s self-image. For instance, Daniel Thomas’s analysis of the reaction to Spain’s bid for association in 1962 suggests that the identification of Europe as a promoter of fundamental democratic principles did not start with the ‘drafting of a treaty or the crafting of a court opinion’ but was gradually and commonly articulated through the enlargement process.7 Frank Schimmelfennig uses the idea of ‘rhetorical entrapment’ to describe the way in which the norms, values and collective identity constructed through discourse can be used strategically by political actors to advance their interest.8 Uli Sedelmeier reprised this analysis in his work on the European Union’s Eastern Enlargement.9 Thomas Diez goes even further, arguing in his 5 In the 1970s, European actors often grouped Spain and Portugal together whenever the issue of ‘democracy’ and political practices was under scrutiny. In spite of the obvious differences, the treatment of the political identity question was remarkably similar across the three countries – being the first country to go through the process, Greece was also the one that first gave rise to questions about the political dimensions of enlargement. Much of what follows will therefore focus on Greece as a key case study.

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